Minister Rishad enters global Muslim500 league

Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen has been listed among the 500 most influential Muslim leaders in the world in a latest ranking.

He is the fourth Sri Lankan to enter this ranking since 2010, the previous entrants being Ms, Jezima Ismail, Supreme Court Judge Saleem Marsoof and M.I.M. Rizvi Mufthi.

Edited by Dr. Joseph Lumbard and Dr Aref Ali Nayed, the annual Muslim500 global ranking is published by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (RISSC), Amman, Jordan. RISSC is affiliated with an international Islamic non-governmental, independent institute called the Royal Aal alBayt Institute for Islamic Thought, headquartered in Amman.

Minister Bathiudeen’s Ministry said that the minister has been is listed in the 2013/14 Muslim500 ranking with (the mention of) ‘Business’ as his “source of influence”.

“Abdul Rishad Bathiudeen is the Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka. He has been hailed for serving thousands of forcibly evicted Northern Sri Lankan Muslims over the past 22 years. He also helped resettle 300,000 people displaced because of the war, regardless of their race or creed,” the entry said.

Among others in the ‘influential in business’ category are Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud (the world’s 26th richest as per Forbes ranking), Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (accredited for introducing the concept of Intellectual Property to the Arab World), and Prince Mohammed Al-Faisal Al-Saud (for setting up world’s first modern bank on Islamic finance, located in Cairo).